Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!

Walking in a quiet hallway sets a gloomy mood, isn't it? As you stroll by room-to-room, then you hear someone yelled "Bingo!" "Bingo!" followed by cheers and laughter, does not it make you laugh or smile a bit? Have you ever been curious why people shout and love bingo? And why bingo exists in the first place?

Honestly, we are not familiar when and how bingo originated. All we know that bingo is a social game that everyone is invited to sit down and play. The main purpose of bingo is to accumulate funds for a proposed or ongoing project. Maybe, you noticed that most bingo players are our senior members of the community. It is because no physical activity is required except for listening and marking down numbers in playing this game.

If it is your first time to witness this kind of random number calling game; don't be ashamed to ask questions the organizers or with your co-players.

We will give you a quick walkthrough on how bingo operates. Assuming that we heard our school or community organizes such event and all set to play bingo, first thing we must remember is to buy our own bingo ticket or card.

The bingo ticket is usually rectangular in size. The letters B I N G O are printed on top. Below each letter are five boxes, (forming a 5 x 5 table). Each box has a number on it. If you are playing 75-ball bingo, the middlemost cell, which is in the intersection of N-column and 3rd row is labeled as free.

After we bought our card, it is now to find a place to sit down. We recommend that you sit somewhere in front of the host so we clearly hear every drawn out number. Furthermore, some events have a display board so we can track down the previously called numbers and as a means of verifying the numbers also.

Now it is time to find out the required pattern. The bingo patterns are mere designs after a player marks the called-out number. If for example, the pattern is a vertical line (N-column), the host picked up a number that falls under the B-column and then it is in our card; we don't have to mark it down. It is simply because it is not the required pattern.

If all the drawn out numbers are in our bingo card and we formed the required; don't hesitate to shout at the top of our voice "Bingo!" The host will stop drawing out numbers and will verify our cards. After which, we get the prize!